Day Six - Thursday - Dinner

Even before we had Tea on Thursday, I already had dinner on the go, the reason being that it was going to take a long time to cook.  So whilst I had a pretty busy afternoon, there wasn't much last-minute dinner prep - as long as all went well, of course...

I had decided to make a beef-steak pudding.  I was excited to try this, as it is something very different and intriguing for me - I couldn't see how it would work, and there really isn't any way to tell whether it has worked until you turn it out.  Suspense!

Dinner:  Beef-Steak Pudding a la Dickens;  Boiled Cabbage;  Buttered Carrots.

It worked!  - more or less.  This pudding is from Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery.  The reason for the somewhat literary title is because the pudding recipe is inspired by a scene from Dickens' novel, Martin Chuzzlewit.  In it, a character named Ruth Pinch makes such a beef-steak pudding for herself and her brother.  Dickens goes into some detail as to the ingredients of the pudding:

“First, she tripped downstairs into the kitchen for the flour, then for the pie-board, then for the eggs, then for the butter, then for a jug of water, then for the rolling-pin, then for a pudding-basin, then for the pepper, then for the salt; making a separate journey for everything, and laughing every time she started off afresh.”

Acton's recipe begins with a suet-based pudding, then gives Ruth Pinch's version as an alternative:

"SMALL BEEF-STEAK PUDDING.*

Make into a very firm, smooth paste, one pound of flour, six ounces of beef-suet, finely minced, half a teaspoonful of salt, and half a pint of cold water. Line with this, a basin which holds a pint and a half. Season a pound of tender steak, free from bone and skin, with half an ounce of salt, and half a teaspoonful of pepper well mixed together; lay it in the crust, pour in a quarter-pint of water, roll out the cover, close the pudding carefully, tie a floured cloth over, and boil it three hours and a half. 

Flour, 1 lb.; suet, 6 ozs.; salt, ½ teaspoonful; water, 
½ pint; rump-steak, 1 lb.; salt, ½ oz.; pepper ½ teaspoonful; water, ¼ pint: 3½ hours.

* To make Ruth Pinch’s celebrated pudding (known also as beef-steak pudding à la Dickens), substi­tute six ounces of butter for the suet in this receipt, and moisten the paste with the well-beaten yolks of four eggs, or with three whole ones, mixed with a little water; butter the basin very thickly before the crust is laid in, as the pudding is to be turned out of it for table. In all else proceed exactly as above."

The whole concept of this is so weird to me - we are essentially making pastry, pouring water into it, and then steaming it.  I honestly don't get how it isn't just a soggy mess?!  And in all honesty, full disclosure:  when I finally took this pudding out of the water and removed the cloth, the top "crust" (which obviously becomes the base when you turn it out) kind of did look like a soggy mess, with a certain amount of liquid visible on top.  So either it must have sprung a leak somewhere, or some of the steaming water gathered on the cloth and dripped in (or both)?  Anyway, I panicked a bit and wasn't sure what to do about it, so I decided to pop it in the oven for a little while, to try to dry the top out a bit.  It worked, and turned out nicely (although it did then develop a sizeable crack, as shown in the photo above).  Anyway, she's not the prettiest little pudding, but for a first try I was quite pleased with how it had turned out.  

In this picture, you can see that the pastry is quite nicely cooked, and not super soggy.  I was actually very surprised at how tasty this was.  I loved it.  Husband liked the filling, but didn't like the pastry so much.  Daughter enjoyed the pastry, but was less keen on the filling.  I actually could understand Husband's position on this, as it was a lot of pastry - I didn't eat all of mine either.  It's not like you can roll it out thinly as you would for a pie;  I guess it needs to be fairly sturdy.  And I understood Daughter's view as well, simply because she is not a huge fan of beef.  Really she has been quite a good sport about how much of it we have had this week.

Besides, I wasn't complaining, as it meant I would get the leftovers the next day.  :)

I made a last-minute decision to bake a simple cake for dessert tonight, and chose Mrs Beeton's "Honey Cake" for the purpose.  The recipe is as follows:

INGREDIENTS.-- ½ breakfast-cupful of sugar, 1 breakfast-cupful of rich sour cream, 2 breakfast-cupfuls of flour, ½ teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, honey to taste.

 

Mode.-- Mix the sugar and cream together; dredge in the flour, with as much honey as will flavour the mixture nicely; stir it well, that all the ingredients may be thoroughly mixed; add the carbonate of soda, and beat the cake well for another 5 minutes; put it into a buttered tin, bake it from ½ to ¾ hour, and let it be eaten warm. 

Once again, there were a few cryptic elements to this recipe, but once I figured out what a breakfast-cup was, I halved the recipe, mixed it, and baked it in a small loaf tin. 

It rose nicely, but did get a bit dark right on the top, so possibly the oven was just a mite too hot.

This cake was pleasant, but fairly unremarkable.  It was not overly sweet;  I think if anything I would add a bit more honey if I was to make it again.

It had quite a nice crumb though - I liked the texture of this one better than Tuesday's Seed-Cake, but the latter probably had a more interesting flavour.  As I said, the flavour of this one might have been improved by increasing the amount of honey in it.

Still, eaten warm from the oven, and accompanied by a nice cup of tea, it was quite an acceptable end to our day.